Bremerton Cafe Abruptly Closed and Emptied Due to Money Woes

Ponderay Cafe and Lounge was abruptly closed by its lender Thursday morning after falling behind on its mortgage payments.

A KeyBank official, armed with a court order, moving trucks and police officers, entered the Callow Avenue establishment at about 8 a.m. By 3 p.m., just about everything that wasn't nailed down was gone.

The patrons who were in the middle of breakfast were allowed to finish eating. Then the staff was directed to leave. Owner George Comeau was called in to empty the safe and his bank accounts and he, too, was then sent away.

Comeau, who bought the former El Camino in 2004 and remodeled it, admits he was late on his payments and owed $200,000 in federal taxes. It was a quicksand combination. As he struggled to pay the mortgage, the Internal Revenue Service would take thousands of dollars at a time from his account.

Comeau said the restaurant was worth more than he owed and he could've gotten above water by selling it.

"I wanted to stay in business and get this worked out, but I just ran out of time," he said.

He said if he was given 10 to 15 more days that Thursday's incident could have been avoided, but the bank had already given him breaks and it wouldn't wait any longer.

Two sheriff's deputies delivered the court order and stuck around for seven hours to see that it was carried out. It is among law enforcement's civic duties in such cases to assure that the business' assets are peacefully turned over to the bank, said Sheriff's Office spokesman Scott Wilson. Three Bremerton police officers also stopped by the store for a while.

A representative from the state Liquor Control Board was on site and ordered open bottles to be dumped out. Unopened ones and beer kegs were returned for credit. Open food was thrown away and packaged perishables were given to organizations.

"I thought it was a little overkill," said Comeau, who had been part owner of Mitzell's in Poulsbo for about 20 years.

Comeau said he has been given 10 days to pay for the confiscated equipment or it will be auctioned off. He probably won't know until the end of next week whether he'll try to reopen the restaurant, which employs 24, or sell it.